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Category Archives: UMBRAGE!!

How to cook rice (1)

I saw this article recently on making rice.  tl;dr?  Well, it just points out that billions of people depend on rice as a staple and then gives you some “common mistakes” about cooking rice.

What I find interesting about this article is that it implies that even though billions of people eat rice in their diet, no one knows how to cook it properly.  What?  How does that make sense?  No one knows how to cook rice properly?  Even though billions of people eat it everyday?  I find this hard to believe.

What I think they mean to say is that the average USian family doesn’t know how to cook rice.  Think about it.  Have you ever gone to an Asian (including Southeast Asian)/Middle Eastern/Indian (which is technically also Asian) restaurant and thought they didn’t know how to cook rice?  Have you ever been invited to an Asian/Middle Eastern/Indian family dinner and worried that they didn’t know how to cook rice?  No.  Because they all know how to cook rice.  Because it’s a staple in their diet.  They would have developed all the proper techniques and tricks already to cook rice to their liking.

Also, many Asian families own a rice cooker, since rice is so important in their diet.  They have a machine dedicated to cooking rice (not that the modern ones can’t do other things, but mostly it’s used to just cook rice).  Don’t you think they know how to cook rice?  I think they know how to cook rice.  Billions of people around the world know how to cook rice.

Now, USian families, for the most part, don’t count on rice as a staple.  The base of their meal tends to be a wheat product.  Thus, it makes sense that some families don’t know how to cook rice.  They just don’t eat it much.  And then think about all the “instant” rice stuff that’s out there.  No wonder they’re at a loss when it comes to actually cooking rice.  And that’s ok.  It’s not a crime against humanity.  They can use whatever tips were offered in the article.

But maybe the writers should have mentioned this.  Maybe they shouldn’t have implied that the whole world doesn’t know how to cook rice.  Or maybe they shouldn’t have implied the US is the only country that matters in the whole world.  Whatever the case, I found it rather annoying.

And by the way, not everyone eats their rice “fluffy.”  Short grain rice doesn’t fluff.

Related post on Friday.

Dog People vs Cat People

According to this article, I should:

  • be an extrovert (patently false, see here)
  • use a pop song as my ringtone (I cannot stand pop, and my ringtone is some random dog barking, also I wouldn’t be found at a party to begin with so there would be no need to cling to friends)
  • call animal control if I see a stray kitten (I would probably just ignore the kitten, but I did name a stray kitten Puppy once and I was terribly supportive of my friend when she was rescuing Puppy…terribly)
  • support cloning for pets (I’ve never given it much thought and I’ve seriously considered getting a graduate degree)
  • consider Paul McCartney as the best Beatle (never really thought about it)
  • think zoos are a happy place (depends on the zoo, I guess; and I send messages on Twitter all the time, one of my dogs even has a Twitter account and she also tweets)
  • enjoy slapstick and impressions (I do, but I also like puns and irony)

Perhaps…I fail as a dog owner.  I’m not really much of any of those things.

However, why is the survey comparing zoos and sending messages on Twitter?  How is that vaguely related?  Ringtones and party-going habits?  Cloning and graduate degrees?  Why not compare bananas and Studebakers?  Wouldn’t that make just as much sense?

So dumb.